Power plant



R. H. OLLEY.

POWER PLANT APPLICATION FILED JULY25, 19!?- 1,344=,81&. Patented June 29, 1920.

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R. H. OLLEY.

POWER PLANT- 7 APPLICATION FILED JULY 25, 1917. 1,344,814.,

Patented June 29, 1920.

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R. H. OLLEY,

POWER PLANT.

APPLICATION FILED sun 25, 1917.

1 344; ,8 1 4 Eatented J une 29, 1920.

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UNITED STATES RAYMOND H. OLLEY, or SYRACUSE, NEW YORK.

POWER PLANT.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented June 29,1920.

Application filed July 25, 1917. Serial No. 182,694.

To all whom it may concern;

Be it known that I, RAYMOND H- OLLEY, a citizen of the United States, anda resident of Syracuse, in the county of Onondaga and State of New York, haveinvented a certain new and useful Power Plant, of which the'following is a specification.

This invention has for its object a power plant for motor vehicles as automobiles, m0- tor-boats and railway cars and for station ary purposes, which power plant is particularly simple in construction, economical and efficient in operation and has a wide range of speed changes without the use of gear shifting devices. p

The invention consists in the novel features and in the combinations and constructions hereinafter set forth and claimed.

In describing this invention, reference is had to the accompanying drawing in which like characters designate corresponding parts in all of the views.

Figure 1 is a front elevation of a preferable form of my invention.

Fig.2 is a plan view, partly in section, contiguous parts of the chassis of the m0- tor vehicle being also shown.

Fig. 3 is a side elevation of the power plant.

Figs. 4 and 5 are sectional views taken on the planes of lines 44 and 55, Fig. 3.

This power plant comprises generally a unit for receiving exploded or exploding products of combustion of the motive fluid, and the unit having a movable member or members for converting said products into mechanical power, a second unit including combustion chamber or chambers, into which the motive fluid is compressed and fired, the combustion chamber being connected to the first-mentioned unit to supply the products of combustion thereto, a piston movable in the combustion chamber, and a third unit for actuating the piston at all times to compress the charge in and expel the ignited or,

exploding charge from, the combustion chamber, the third unit being preferably mechanically disconnected from the first unit. The motive. fluid may be any suitable ignitible gas, or gaseous material, such as atomized hydrocarbon, oralcohol, etc.

The first unit preferably comprises a turbine including a casing ;1, and a rotor .2 of suitable construction in the casing, and mounted upon a shaft 3' from which the poweris taken to perform work, as the actuation of the live axles of an automobile, or other motor vehicle, or the propeller shaft of a motor boat, or aeroplane, etc.

The turbine comprises inner and outer concentric series of vanes or blades and the stationary abutment blades 4 located be-, tween the inner and outer series of blades of the rotor 2, the abutments 4 being car ried by a fixed plate 5 carried by a frame, which is here shown as of the form of a spider 6 having a hub 7 in which one end of the shaft 3 is journaled. The rotor further includes spokes 8 which are inclined to form fan blades, the spokes extending from a hub 9 fixed to the shaft 3 to rotate therewith, and supporting the vanes of the rotor 2.

The second unit comprises one or more cylinders 10 and pistons 11 movable in the cylinders and connected to means for reciprocating the same in the cylinders, in order to draw in and compress the charge,.and to discharge the ignited charge therefrom and into the turbine casing 1. As here shown the cylinders are arranged in a circular series around the axis of the shaft 3 with their .axes substantially parallel to the axis of the shaft 3, and the heads thereof are supported by the plate 5. The cylinders are formed with intake passages 12, having ports which open at "their inner ends into the cylinders in position to be uncovered by the pistons 11 when the pistons 11 are approaching the limit of their outstrokes, and the passages 12 are connected at their other ends to an annular intake yoke'13 which is connected by means of a lateral conduit 14 to a suitable carbureter 15. The cylinders are connected to the turbine casing 1 by means of outlet passages 16 having ports 17 opening into the cylinders between the ends thereof in position to be always covered by the pistons 11 and to register with ports 18 in the pistons when the pistons are approaching the ends of their in or compression strokes. The passages 16 open at their outer ends into ports 19 formed in the rotor casing 1, which ports communicate with inclined passages 20 opening at intervals into the interior of the turbine casing in position to discharge into the outer series of rotor vanes. The gas passes through the series of fixed abutments 4 and thence through the inner series of rotor blades into the exhaust chamber 21, and thence through outletpipe 22.

Each piston 11 is formed with a lengthwise passage 23 opening at one end through the face thereof and at its other end into the port 18, so that as soon as the port 18 comes into registration with the port 17, the exploding gases are discharged during the latter part of the compression stroke of the piston 11 through the passage 23, ports 17 and 18, passage 16 to the rotor casing 1. The pistons 11 are connected by rods 2% to a power transmitting element which serves to reciprocate the pistons. The power transmitting element, is here shown as a rocking spider 25 actuated by the third unit to be presently described. The cylinders are provided with heat radiating flanges and the air is drawn radially inwardly about the cylinders to cool the same by the fan blades 8. The cylinders may, however, be cooled in any other suitable manner.

The third unit comprises an actuating shaft 26 and a motor for actuating it, the motor being usually an electric motor 27. The shaft 26 is alined with the shaft 3 and is journaled at one end in the bearing 28 which supports the intake yoke 13, and the power transmitting element or spider 25 is loosely mounted around'this shaft. Means is provided on the shaft for rocking said element 25 during rotation of the shaft. Said means comprises a cam or hub 29 mounted on the shaft 26 to rotate therewith and having its axis inclined relatively to the axis of the shaft 26, and the element 25 mounted on the cam 29 with its axis coincident with the axis of the cam 29, so that said element rocks about a transverse axis at a right to the axis of the shaft 3. Suitable antifriction bearings 28 constructed to act both as radial and a thrust bearing are interposed between the cam 29 and the spider or element 25. The element 25 is held from rotation by means of an arm 29 which works in a lengthwise slot 30 in a casing 31 inclosing the connecting rods 2 1 the spider 25 and other parts, the casing being secured to the ends of the. cylinders 10. The motor 27 is mounted on the outside of the casing with its shaft 26 in alinement with the shaft The charges in the cylinder are ignited by spark plugs 32, the spark plugs having their electrodes located in recesses 33 in the cylinders which recesses open into the cylinders in position to register with the ports 18 just before the ports 18 register with the outlet ports 17 Hence immediately after the charge is fired, the ports 18 come into registration with the outlet ports 17. The ignitions are timed by a suitable timer 34, the movable member of which is actuated by timing gears 35, 36, mounted respectively on the shaft 26 and on a vertically extending shaft 37 on which is also mounted the movable member of the timer.

38 designates a storage battery, and 39 a generator both of which are connected by suitable wires to the terminals of the motor 27, and also to the ignition system, the generator being also electrically connected to the storage battery to charge the same. A suitable controller 10 is located in the service wires to the motor to control the speed thereof and hence the speed of the power plant, and a suitable automatic cutout switch 10 is interposed between the generator and the battery to prevent the battery from discharging into the generator when the generator is not running fast enough to generate an electric current.

The shaft 3 from which the power is taken is connected to the propeller shaft 11 through suitable reducing gears 42, 13, 44:, 15, 16, d7, located in a casing 48 suitably secured. to the turbine casing 1, or the casing of the exhaust passage 21. The gear 12 which is mounted upon the shaft 3 is shiftable axially thereon by any suitable shifting means, out of mesh with the gear 13 and into neutral and into mesh with the intermediary 49, which. also meshes with the gear 13. lVhen the gear 12 is in mesh. with the gear 49, the direction of rotation of the shaft 41 is reversed. The shaft 11 is connected by means of a universal joint 19 to a shaft 50, journaled in the casing 48 and on which the last gear 17 of the reducing gears is mounted. The armature shaft 51 of the generator is arranged in alinement with. the shaft 3 and is connected thereto by means of a shiftable clutch section 52 rotatable with the armature and coacting with the clutch section 53 fixed to the shaft 3, the clutch section 52 being operated by a suitable automatic releasing device of any well-known construction including a solenoid 5 1, the core of which acts upon a lever 52 which shifts the clutch section 52 out against the action of a spring tending to hold the clutch section engaged, the solenoid being actuated to release the clutch section 52 automatically when the shaft 51 is rotated faster than generator speed. As the construction of this release forms no part of this invention, it is thought that further description is unnecessary. In use the clutch section 52 is being constantly shifted into and out of its engaged position.

In operation, the motor 27 may be actuated from the storage battery initially to start the shaft 26 and thus draw in and compress charges of motive fluid in the cylinders 10, in which the charges are ignited and from which they are expelled by the movement of the pistons 11, into the turbine casing 1, to actuate the rotor 2 and the turbine shaft 3, and hence drive the shaft 41. After the motor 27 has been started by the storage battery 1, it continues to be actuated by the generator or the battery, or both, and thus actuates the pistons 11 in the cylinders 10 to supply the power to the turbine.

Owing to the fact that the pistons have no power stroke, a charge can be exploded in each cylinder during each rotation of the shaft 26, and further as the turbine can be constructed to utilize all of the power of the products of combustion by increasing the number of the series of vanes or blades on the rotor, the gases are exhausted at atmospheric pressure, and hence no muffler is necessary. Furthermore, when the vehicle is coasting, the hydrocarbon supply can be cut off and the generator 39 actuated from the propeller shaft which is being driven by the axles on which the ground wheels 5-1 are mounted, and the differential gearing located in the casing 55. The plant may be supported, in any suitable manner on the sills 56 of the chassis by means of transverse bars 57.

My power plant is particularly advantageous in that it is extremely flexible as it has a wide range of speed changes without gear shifting, and further in that it is controlled by a single easily operated controller lever and hence, the clutch throttle, spark and the gear shifting lovers of the present motor vehicles are eliminated.

What I- claim is:

1. A power plant comprising a turbine, a combustion. chamber communicating with the casing of the turbine, means for compressing the motive fluid in the chamber, an electric motor connected to the said means to operate the same to compress and expel the charge from the combustion chamber,

and an electric generator for supplying the motor and connected to the'turbine to be driven thereby, substantially as and for the purpose specified.

2. A power plant comprising axially alined driving and driven shafts, a cylinder,

a piston movable in the cylinder, means on the driving shaft for reciprocating the piston, a turblne including a rotor mounted on the driven shaft, the cylinder having an outlet passage connecting the same with the turbine casing, an electric motor connected to the driving shaft, and an electric generator and a propeller shaft connected to the driven shaft, substantially as and for the purpose specified.

3. A power plant comprising axially alined driving and driven shafts, cylinders arranged in circular series about the axis of the shafts and arranged with their axes substantially parallel with the axis of the shafts, pistons movable in the cylinders, a turbine including a casing and a rotor movable in the casing and mounted on the her, an axle, mechanical power transmitting means between said shaft and the axle, a combustion chamber communicating with the casing, means compressing the motive fluid in the chamber, an electric motor and mechanical power transmitting means between the motor and the compressing means to operate the compressing means, substantially as and for the purpose described.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto signed my name, at Syracuse, in the county of Onondaga, and State of New York, this 21st day of July, 1917.

RAYMOND H. OLLEY. 

